Gone and Back
by SilverTonguedDetective
Summary: "I had though things would end differently for me. I had always though I would go out with a bang. I guess I was wrong." Alternate ending to 'Home Front'. Talk about a near death experience. Fluffy ending, KFxRob if you squint. R&R
1. Gone

**I have nothing to say. Just enjoy.**

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><p>"KALDUR! How's Megan?" shouts Superboy from the ground floor, straining against the twisted metal that restrains him.<p>

"She breaths, I believe she will recover" Kaldur replies with relief, "Hows Robin?" he questions, suddenly worried.

Artemis rushes over to Robin and leans over him, she places a tentative hand on his neck, searching for signs of life, Her eyes panicked and wide.

"He's... not breathing.." she stutters out "H-he's not breathing!" she shouts, her eyes going wide. Quickly her training kicks in and she begins administering chest compressions, trying very hard not to break down and cry. But she knows it's no use. With each compression she can feel the cold seeping through the red kevlar. She pinches his nose closed and presses her lips to his icy pale ones, the cold of his corpse almost making her sick as she breaths into his mouth again.

'No no no no _NO_ Artemis, don't think like that. It's body, not corpse._ Body_.'

She panics as she begins chest compressions again. Hoping. Praying. Begging.

Seconds tick by and turn to minutes with no signs of life from the Boy Wonder. Tears streak down her cheeks and drip onto Robins face as she forces air past his cold blue tinged lips once again.

_I should have known that it would be impossible for everyone to survive, everything was cut too close. If only I had been faster, if only I hadn't panicked. It's all my fault. It's my fault he's...dead._

Eventually Kaldur pulls Artemis away as her compressions have become frantic and desperate.

Kaldur shakes his head, tears welling in his eyes, he grabs her shaking wrists and pulls Artemis into his chest, hugging her as she sobs.

Superboy and Kid Flash just stare, wide eyed.

"Aqualad?" KF asks slowly. "He's ok, right? R-right?"

Aqualad simply stands, leaving Artemis shuddering, hunched on the cold metal floor. He walks over to where Robins cape lies discarded. With trembling movements he takes the cape and and returns to Artemis's side.

With shaking hands Aqualad places it over Robin's body carefully.

"W-what?" Kid Flash stutters out, straining against his restraints. Superboy just stares, mouth slightly unhinged, eyes wide. Aqualad sinks to his knees next to Artemis.

"Guys! He's ok, right?" Kid Flash shouts again, his voice echoing desperately in the silence of the cave, as if searching for someone, anyone, to tell him that Robin is fine.

Wally's own voice mocks him as it echoes, finding no reply in the lonely caverns of the cave.

Robin is gone.

No one can move. No one can speak. They are all in the exact same spot when the league finally arrives.

Aqualad can't feel his legs as he struggles to stand, eyes painfully wide and still brimming with unshed tears.

I won't cry. I will be strong. In his….memory.

Batman, Superman, Flash, Martian Manhunter, Green arrow, Aquaman and Black Canary all rush into the cavern, Flash and Superman get right to trying to free Superboy and Kid Flash from their metal prisons.

"Guys, what happened?" Flash asks Wally, stepping back so Superman can break him free. KF collapses into his uncles waiting arms.

Wally just mumbles incoherently, green eyes wide.

By the time Superman has both boys free, the rest of the league has reached Aqualad, Artemis and Megan.

Black Canary rushes over to the unconscious Megan while the rest of the league runs over to Aqualad, who is struggling to make his way over to them.

Aquaman reaches Kaldur first.

"Kaldur'ahm. What has happened?" he demands

Kaldur's eyes are glazed over and far away.

"ambushed...red t-tornado... a-ambushed...us" he manages to sound out "

"Red tornado ambushed you?" Aquaman asks. Kaldur just nods furiously.

"Batman, what do you make of this?" Black Canary asks him then notices the cloaked figure at his feet.

Dinah inhales sharply, her face falling.

"…No."

The Batman stares at his fallen partner. No, not partner. Son. He could barely hear what Kaldur was trying to tell Aquaman. I all feels so far away. All he knew was that his son had fallen. A 13 year old boy, a 13 year old hero, now lies dead at his feet. Taken from the world.

Batman tries to pay attention to Black Canary's stuttered calming words, yet he can't understand what she was saying. After finally letting someone into his heart, they were killed. Taken away from him again.

It was like a curse was bestowed on Bruce Wayne. It was like he wasn't allowed to have a family.

A sudden urge overtakes him. The need to see the face of his son one more time. In one fluid movement, Batman pulls the cape off of Robin. Off of Richard Grayson.

KF lets out a sob.

Every so quietly, as if not to wake him, Batman kneels down next to his son and pulls off the domino mask that separated Robin from Dick.

Only then does The Batman allow himself to break down and cry.

The Flash is clinging to Wally desperately as if any moment he would disappear just as well.

Superman stands alone, tears streaking down his face quietly.

'He called me uncle.'

Martian Manhunter is busying himself with tending to M'ghann, desperately trying not to remember the time when he had spent an entire day with Robin and had taught the boy how to play chess.

Black Canary has her arms around Batman as he cries.

'Once he called me mom'

Green Arrow is on the phone with Roy, trying to explain. Artemis has curled into a ball by his feet.

Aquaman has his arm around a rigid Kaldur, who had long ago stopped crying. His expression holds a blank look.

M'ghann sobs silently into Superboy's shirt, staining it with her tears. He holds her tightly while Kid Flash panics, saying that Robin couldn't be dead, saying that the Boy Wonder can't die. Who was going to disappear without a trace, laughing at his foes? Who was going to take over the team from Aqualad?

Who was going to be his best friend?

Kaldur couldn't find the words to describe what had happened here tonight. He couldn't grasp that someone who was with them at all times would dare to betray them. He feels that he has failed as the leader.

No, he didn't just feel that. He knew that he had failed here tonight. One of their teammates lays dead at Batman's feet. Kaldur felt that as if nothing would change what happened here tonight. No, he knew that nothing could ever change what happened here. He had failed Robin.

Suddenly, Batman remembers a conversation that he had with Richard when he had first joined the team.

"If anything happens to me, tell them, the team I mean. Tell the team my name. My full name. Please, just do that for me"

He had agreed. It was one of the rarely spoken of mentions of the dangers that two normal humans face when going up against super villains. The reality of it all is that at any moment, with one careless move or misplaced step it could all be over. Thats all it takes for a life to be wiped from existence. That's all it took, and now Robin is gone.

g.o.n.e.

The Batman stands, brushing off Dinah's embrace.

"He told me…to tell you… if anything happened he told me to tell you…"

He takes a deep breath.

"Richard John Grayson, he was Richard John Grayson"

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><p><strong>Dont cry, I could never keep Robin dead for long. Things get better in the next chapter, dont you worry your pretty little head.<strong>

**Reviews are love**

**~50-FTS-51**


	2. Back

**Sorry for the long wait, so with out further delay, here's what you've all been waiting for.**

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><p>It's all a blur what happens next.<p>

One moment everything is unearthly quiet as everyone grieves in their own way, the next they are trying to tear Wallace West from Robin's corpse.

It was as if in that moment, when Batman had spoken Robin's true name, the Meta had broken. He couldn't accept the cruel reality that this best friend is dead. Simply dead.

He couldn't accept that the boy who could drive him insane and back again was gone.

He couldn't accept that he had lost his brother.

The Flash just turns away, overwhelmed.

Wally refused the tears to fall from his emerald eyes as he pauses a moment and takes a deep breath. He wasn't going to let his best friend die like this. If they were going to die, then they would die in battle together as teammates.

Leaning over his fallen friend, Wally closes his eyes and steadies himself, not truly understanding what he's about to do.

Reaching deep within himself, Wally searches for an unknown current of energy that uncle Barry had described to him once.

"It's called the Speed force. It's what gives us speedsters our power. You feel it running through you? It's an energy that connects us all together, and if you try hard enough, you can access it and use it to your advantage. You and I use it on a smaller degree when it comes to our accelerated healing."

Wait… accelerated healing? Suddenly a crazy, unrealistic and insane idea comes to Wally's mind.

Not pausing a moment so consider if it's even possible, Wally forces the electrical hum within him to obey. He forces it out, through his fingertips. The air begins to crackle with the charge, visible sparks of red flash through the air.

Wally opens his eyes and forces his palms into to Robin's icy chest.

Robin's body convulses sickeningly with the jolt of electricity and for a fraction of a second, Kid Flash almost gives up, disgusted and overwhelmed.

But no. Robin would never give up on me. Ever. Remember his smile, remember his laugh. Remember all those nights spent in Gotham, doing nothing but talking. Remember fighting side by side. Remember.

The air crackles again, only this time with a higher intensity than before, as if to match Kid Flash's renewed determination.

Barry freezes, recognizing the hum that fills the air and turns to face his nephew, not believing his eyes. Everyone just watches.

Wally forces down on his friends chest again, the energy in the room spiking, electrical currents shifting through his hair.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Forcing out a rhythm, a heartbeat. All the while hoping if even for a second, through some miracle, he could somehow manage to heal Robin.

The young speedster pulls together all the energy he possibly can, the speed force dances through the air, the lights flicker. He gives everything he possibly can, and more with one last shock to the corpse that was his best friend.

With that Wallace West collapses on his side. Exhausted.

Robin's hollow body remains motionless.

Barry comes over and helps Wally to his feet, wrapping his arms around the younger to support him.

"You did the best you could. I'm proud of you" he mutters shakily into Wally's hair as he leads him away from the corpse, the rest of the league follows, with the exception of Batman. Their fragile hope shatters like a glass.

It was stupid to even think that there was hope.

Their footsteps echo in the empty cavern, the silence is crushing.

Then, suddenly, from out of the silence come a single, convulsing, shuddering, excruciatingly drawn out breath that reverberates off of the stone walls.

Everyone spins around in time to catch sight of Robin's chest arched off of the floor with the effort it took to take in that single precious breath.

No one moves. No one breathes. No one dares to hope… well maybe for a moment.

Again Robin convulses with the extreme effort of his next pained breath and then breaks down coughing up blood and stale water.

His eyes flutter open, pupils dilated to an extreme, revealing magnificent ice blue irises.

He takes another breath, this one slightly less labored.

Batman drops to his knees beside his son, the rest of the league flocking to his side in total and utter disbelief.

Again Robin begins coughing and falls into some sort of twitching fit.

The entire room lets out a breath they didn't know they had been holding. Megan starts to cry again, not with sadness, but with relief, the same relief that every person in that room is now flooded with.

Robin lies still on the floor again, breathing so quickly it's almost as if he's panting. When his breathing slows down he struggles with an uncooperative body to prop himself up onto one elbow. Batman helps him up ever so slowly with trembling hands, as if the smallest misplaced movement could pull his son away from him again.

Robin's eyes are unfocused and far away, but ever so slowly with each shuddering breath, the dull gray fog that had settled over them lifts and they begin to slowly drift around the room taking in the pale faces of the people gathered around him.

In the first two minutes he simply struggles to catch his breath, not bothering to pay attention to the figures now hurriedly crowding around him. Everything is too blurry anyway, and every time the boy wonder would try to pull a face into focus the now constant pounding in his head would flair and the ringing in his ears would spike and screech uncomfortably loud, just worsening the headache. Richard Grayson simply sits in a stupor.

In the next two minutes the bothersome fog has lifted enough for the young hero to catch and pull snippets of his surroundings into focus, an eye here, a smile there. Nothing lasting long enough for the image to make any sense, from what he could tell through the haze there are lots of people around, and all of them seem very excited over something.

After another few minutes of very deep breaths the ringing in his ears subsides to a manageable level and the voices of those around him are no longer an agitated buzz. His headache even subsides enough for him to pull entire faces into focus.

Things are starting to make sense again and bits and pieces of memories come trickling back into awareness.

Soon he can put names to the faces pushing through the fog.

_'t-that's Bruce….and there's KF and Uncle Barry….'_ Slowly, in his mind he counts off all the names of his teammates and their mentors.

_'But why is everyone standing around me?'_

Suddenly a sturdy arm is around his back, helping the Boy Wonder in his quest to sit up, when he does finally manage to get into a sitting position, he gets such a terrible head rush that he nearly blacks out again. When The Boy Wonder's vision clears up again he shakes his head slightly, willing the fog to disperse.

Then, through his left ear, he hears a muffled noise. The noise grows louder as the ringing in his ears subsides enough for him to hear. The noise grows louder still and he scrunches up his face slightly in displeasure, wishing the noise would stop. Turning slowly to the left he looks up through half lidded ice blue eyes at the source of the noise, which just so happens to be Batman.

His mouth is moving, but the words that come out are making little sense to the Boy Wonder, yet Batman just keeps talking.

"-Ichard…can –ou hea- me?" Is what Robin hears in a moment of clarity, feeling a bit better with each passing minute.

Now the young hero notices for the first time the worry so clearly evident on his father's face, even with the cowl on. He figures Something must have happened.

"Richard…Robin…can you hear me?" Batman asks again with renewed urgency.

"Ss-ok…Dad…I'm fi-fine….just….just be quiet, you're making my….headache w…worse" Robin replies slowly, his voice slow and drawling, but surprisingly strong as well.

Batman's eyes widen slightly when Robin finally speaks

"Ss-ok…" he drawls again with a small smile and The Batman pulls his son into a crushing hug.

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><p><strong>And there you have it. I would like to thank all the wonderful people who watched, favorited, and reviewed, it is thanks to you that I managed to pull through and finish this story. So thank you again :3<strong>

**Should I write an epilogue? And what about Roy? Cause Green arrow is a dumb ass and would probably forget to tell him that Robin pulled through, well I guess that's for another day.**

**I want to know what you think. Love it? Hate it? Well I want to know, so drop me a review if you would.**

**Please and thank you,**

**~50-FTS-51**


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